Sunday, 16 June 2013

Weekly round up - or - what a lot I learned this week (11 weeks to go)

Two really key lessons learned this week, nothing technical, but more to do with how I handle recovery, which I'm going to apply in the remaining 11 weeks of my training.

After Blenheim Tri and my 30 mile ride the next day, I was pretty shattered. My legs were sore and I didn't sleep well for a few nights which didn't help with the recovery. Although I swam 3k on Monday morning, and was planning 2 at the lake in the evening, I was relieved when Claire the Crayfish was feeling a little apprehensive, and I got to swim gently round with her rather than trying to cram 2 laps in. Tuesday morning, I made it to the pool, but as the day progressed I felt worse and worse. Absolutely exhausted and nauseous. I came home from work early and went to bed - but frustratingly couldn't sleep - and missed the planned bike ride. I am still not entirely sure whether I had a bug or whether it was just exhaustion - we were also in the last week of term at work and about half the department had end-of-term-itis in some form or another. I had to take a sick day on Wednesday - my first since December. Fortunately, a day in bed sorted me out, and although I was still a little fragile on Thursday morning, I was able to take advantage of my usual Thursday late start and make up a little bit of training, at least I had stopped feeling sick. Usual rest day on Friday (although felt guilty taking it, having been in bed all day Wednesday) and then back to normal?! on Saturday.Lesson learned: allow more time for recovery after an event. After Stowe Triathlon at the start of July, I will go for an easy swim the following night, and be very realistic about what sessions I can complete in the week following.

On Saturday I decided to put in a long run, my longest since February. Went surprisingly well, even though my run earlier in the week had found me still with sore calves from Blenheim. Did 14k in just under 1h20 - very nearly on pace for a sub-2 hour half! It was a little optimistic then to think that I could manage a long bike the next day, I woke up with DOMS in my calves and thighs. But it had to be done - I needed to log the miles. It was painful, and not having slept well either didn't help. I made it to 44 miles before bailing out, which was a shame, as we were going fairly well, the ride was flat and I could easily have got in the extra 12 mile loop that I do sometimes, to take me up to 56. But not today.Lesson learned: I'll have to get up earlier one day in the week to get my long run in - 11k is doable on my current get-up time, but I need to be running a bit further than that now! Long runs need to be 14 or 16k.

What's the plan for this week?
Slightly different week to the usual routine due to slightly different working patterns - hopefully to my advantage!
Monday: am swim; pm lake swim
Tuesday: am run; [pm work late]
Wednesday: am swim [hopefully a longish one as don't need to be at a training course til 930); pm bike! [afternoon off so hoping to get in 2 hour bike ride?]
Thursday: am swim, 5k run [no morning off but not in until 10am...] [if I don't get the run done before work, will get it done after]
Friday: OFF
Saturday: 1500m swim race, maybe an extra swim on the way home?
Sunday: bike
Bring it on!

1 comment:

Finding how much time you need to recover after an event is tough. I've read that swimming the day after a race and then taking a rest day two days after works really well; a low-impact workout helps get the blood flowing and prevent pain and soreness.